


Laws of Detachment

by agenderleadingplayer



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Canon Era, DWSA-verse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, More Characters TBD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-04-27 08:40:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5041570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agenderleadingplayer/pseuds/agenderleadingplayer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story." - Richard Siken</p><p>Post-Canon. A story about Ernst and Hanschen as they grow up and move in and out of each other's lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You Are My Moon

**Author's Note:**

> if i were to tell you that i didn't read a lot of richard siken while writing this i would Very Much be lying. (every chapter will be a siken quote, hopefully from "the worm king's lullaby," where i got the title from)
> 
> this is the first chapter of i-don't-know-how-many so...hope you enjoy!!!
> 
> i'm gonna try to post every week/two weeks or so, but my muse doesn't really follow rules so we'll see

One touch, two. 

One favor, two. 

One step, two...

He asks to walk you home. 

You can't very well say no, so you comply, your breath shuddering with every crack in the pavement. 

Your hands brush his four times; you wonder if he's been counting, too. 

This goes on for a week, though it seems longer. The walks are long, though they seem shorter; you wonder why time never seems to work properly when you're with him. 

And you wonder, sometimes, why you choose to pursue him (or does he pursue you? You can never tell anymore...) after what your father said to you about him that one night, and your father has said a lot of rational things in his day; says them all after each failed test you bring home, after each time you're labeled a Disappointment, a title thrust upon you more often than you care to admit. 

So you try your best to please the man: try to make sense of algebra and mechanics and Virgil, try after each night the boy walks you home, your hands still tingling from touches that almost were. 

"He's not a good role model" your father had said. "Why don't you hang around nicer boys? Boys who care?"

But he does care, you want to say. He couldn't not if he offers to walk you home every day, translates Latin for you. He couldn't not if he talks to you about up and leaving, just getting out of here; talks about it like the two of you could do it together – move to London or Paris or America, away from troubles and F's on algebra tests and teachers who scream at you as though you can hear them. 

The first night he'd proposed your running away you had been sitting in your bedroom with him, focusing your eyes on your hands or your pillow or anything but him; it was as if he was the sun. 

And you're not saying anything – neither of you are saying anything – until he taps you on the shoulder and says why don't we just leave. 

You didn't know what he meant, so he explained, calmly, nicely. "We could go, you know," he said. "Just the two of us. To Berlin, or Munich – or even somewhere else...would you like to see New York, Ernst?"

And you weren't sure why he was asking you this, why he was proposing going anywhere with you, of all people, so you stuttered, tried to find the words. He smiled, all teeth, but real nonetheless, and got up from your bed. "It was a foolish thought anyway," he said, then: "Well...goodbye. See you tomorrow, okay?"

You had been too scared to bring it up again. 

It's been four days, and he sits in your bedroom again with you now, your father's snarky remarks about him seeming to melt away as you look at him, really look at him for the first time, and try to say something, anything that would break this terrifying silence...

"I'd love to see New York," you settle on, answering the question he'd posed to you nearly a week before. He laughs, flashes another all-teeth smile, and you wonder if all kids your age see their friends this way, can't look them in the eye too long because they're afraid of what might happen if they do...

Hanschen raises his eyebrows; whether in surprise or amusement you don't know. You steal a glance at his hands, pale, nimble fingers probably accustomed to the strings of a violin or the slick ivory keys of a piano...

He interlaces his fingers with yours.

You don't know why, but your breath hitches in your chest and you forget a lot of things in this moment, forget about your father downstairs and the Latin exam you most likely failed and somehow now your life in New York with him seems real, seems like it could happen, and you're thinking all this as he runs his thumb up and down your knuckles, maybe just affirming that he's there, and alive, in front of you...

He stands up. "I should go," he says frantically, glancing at the clock next to your bed with worried blue eyes. "Wouldn't want to...keep my family waiting..." He glances down, then walks out. 

And you know he wanted to stay, know somewhere in your heart or soul or wherever else these feelings come from that he would've stayed there holding your hand if he could have, but somewhere along the line those feelings got lost and now he was out the door and down the street and probably wouldn't do that again. 

And he doesn't do it again. 

He stops asking to walk you home after school, never asks to translate your homework for you; your Latin grade drops from a C to a D minus. Your father is displeased, to say the least. 

It goes on like this for months, until. 

Maybe it's the shock of it all, maybe Hanschen just needs someone to help him. 

But it doesn't even matter because all of a sudden Moritz is dead. 

They'd told you how it happened with frantic eyes and red faces, and you refused to believe it for a while. Only until you actually put on the suit your father set out for you and walked to the church with your head down did you feel it. 

The pews are cold wood, and you sit there quietly when Hanschen slides in next to you, bows his head and says something you can't hear. He grabs your hand again then, for the first time in three months, and you sit through the funeral like that, his thumb caressing your knuckles like he'd done before and you, trying not to cry for two different reasons now: one right next to you and one twenty feet ahead, in a wooden box in his nicest suit. 

He asks you if you want to go somewhere with him after the service. You tell him you don't know, but he gives you directions to a vineyard a mile away anyway, says if you want to join him you should, says he'll be there all afternoon.

You debate with yourself for almost half an hour before making up your mind, taking small steps over to where Hanschen sits now, wearing all-black against a backdrop of green. 

The boy smiles when you walk up to him in a way that says maybe he wasn't sure you would come. You sit down next to him. 

"Those bells," he says, looking at you with eyes so deep you half worry you'll drown in them. "So peaceful."

You nod, though you can't hear the bells he's speaking of; you decide to let him forget about that for the moment. You turn to him then, and tell him your dreams of being a country pastor when you're older, but you let the words fall with an edge of uncertainty, Hanschen's promise of a life with him in a big city somewhere still seemingly fresh in your mind. 

He looks at you with the hint of a laugh in his face. "You can't be serious." He tells you, then, about how he lives his life, just...skimming off the...cream of it. 

Like...a pussycat. 

He puts his hand on your face, tells you to come away with him for the moment. And your breath hitches in your chest again but this time it's different because this time you know why, because his face is dangerously close to yours and, yes, this is what it feels like to drown in those blue eyes...

He presses his lips to yours, and you probably make an abominable sound, but he keeps kissing you, his hand warm on your face until you pull away, reserved.

"Oh, God..." 

He leans back. "I know." He tells you how you'll look back and find this beautiful in the future, twenty or thirty or however many years from now. You don't tell him that you find it so beautiful already, now, that you're not quite convinced that it's actually happening. 

And you might have told him so if he hadn't leaned in to kiss you again, his hand on your face and yours on his arms, and you're so close, so, so beautifully close, and you wish it would go on forever but you pull back again because just the kissing somehow isn't enough for you; somehow you need to know why.

"On my way here this afternoon, I thought perhaps we would only...talk."

Hanschen moves back, his head down. "So are you sorry we...?" He doesn't really phrase it like a question, though. More as an apology. 

"No. No! I..." You take a deep breath. There are tears on your face, you can feel them. "I love you, Hanschen," you say fast, looking down at your hands. "As I...as I have never loved anyone."

He leans back again, smiles wide. "And so you should," he says, an air of finality in the phrase.

And somehow, you know that what he really means is he loves you too.


	2. These Tornadoes are for You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a nutshell, my interpretation of why Ernst signs with the girls in "The Dark I Know Well" and the end of an age. 
> 
> Chapter title from "A Primer for the Small Weird Loves," Richard Siken.

You have only been to his house once previously, and your hand trembles a bit as you knock the smooth oak front door.

One knock, two.

He opens it and pulls you in by your lapels, bringing his lips to yours you barely have time to blink. Your breath hitches in your chest again like it always does when he kisses you; you can never seem to make the feeling go away.

But this time the kiss feels different, feels like he's kissing someone else, or nothing at all.

Or maybe you're just imagining things.

Yes, that was it; this was just as real, just as right as all those other times he'd kissed you; your breathing still stopped when he did, right?

He pulls back and leads you by the hand up to his room, where he sits next to you on his bed. You don't talk.

(It seems it's a sort of habit now, the two of you not talking in various bedrooms.)

You take his hand, turn it over on yours. He doesn't pull back, but he doesn't really act like he likes it either; you let go, stare at Hanschen's bedspread.

"I love you," you say, not knowing if he's even looking at you, not knowing if he can see what you're saying. You look up, see he's looking at you, decide it's safe to go on. "You do...you do know that, right?" He nods absentmindedly, and you long for the months before these, where he at least tried to reciprocate all of this, would kiss you when you said these things, showed you he loved you the only ways he knew how.

But now he just sits there, and you're scared out of your mind all of a sudden because you start thinking about what happens when Hanschen is Not There, what happens when he has to go somewhere, or decides to leave you, or...

You tell yourself not to think about that at the moment, assure yourself it's foolish thinking, he'll always be there, holding your hand through funerals and kissing you so hard you forget your name.

All of a sudden you're back home.

You don't remember leaving, or him asking you to leave, or him kissing you goodbye...

It's all right though, you think. Because you'll see him tomorrow, won't you.

...Won't you?

The weekend ends far too quickly and school starts again.

And you don't see him.

That Monday you go straight home from school for the first time in a while. Your father greets you at the door.

You lower your head, and he says something you can't hear.

You don't respond, and he says the same thing louder.

You push past him; he grabs you by your shirt collar and spins you around.

"I said," he says at last, "why weren't you coming home earlier last week?"

You try to tell him why you've been home so late, the words coming off your tongue in uneven, probably barely intelligible syllables. You tell him you've been with Hanschen, it's fine, everything's fine.

And then again he's yelling at you, probably telling you things like Don't Hang Out With Him Ernst; He's a Bad Influence Ernst; What Did I Tell You About That Boy Ernst; Next Time I Swear To God Ernst.

You rush up to your room once his mouth stops moving, a small voice at the back of your mind reminding you that you wish Hanschen was here, telling you things he never would in real life; things like he loves you and cares for you and....

And you're foolish, really, for expecting him to. He doesn't need to say it; you're being nothing but demanding, he can live his own way, and besides, he shows you through actions, right?

You must have been sitting on your bed, arguing with yourself, for a good twenty minutes when the doorknob turns and your father walks in and plants himself in the middle of the room, arms crossed. You subconsciously sit up a little straighter.

You don't know what he's saying, but you see Hanschen's name pass his lips and then you know – you know that he knows, know that someone told him. Maybe it was a classmate who told their parents who told him, maybe your teacher found out. Either way, you realize a lot of things all at once.

The first is that you never thought your father would ever find out, thought that all this took place in your own private bubble, away from fathers who scream, who hit, who drink too much...

The second is that you love Hanschen so, so much. And if you were never to see him again you would have no idea what to do.

And the third...

The third is that you are very, very scared.

You see what your father is saying now, see the words "never see him" on his mouth, the click of his teeth as he says (probably yells) "grounded". He turns and leaves the room with a sense of finality, slams the door behind him.

You turn your light off and get in bed; it doesn't matter that it's only 8:30. You need to not be in this world for a while, need the comfort of the dreams...

All the boys in your grade talk about them – the dreams they have. They say they all involve...legs, and things. Some call them horrifying. Some call them...well, you're not quite sure what they say, really. All you know is that yours are different, all involve soft kisses and warm palms and blond hair...

They bring you comfort, the dreams, when real life doesn't.

So you sleep, and you dream, and you dream of Hanschen.

You wake up far too soon, right in the middle of a kiss, or a hand on your side, or nimble fingers on the buttons of your shirt.

You walk to school in the rain, trudge through the day as if it were a mud puddle. It's clear outside by the time the final bell rings, and Hanschen walks up to you.

"May I...walk you home?"

You clench your jaw, shake your head. "My father..." Shake your head again. "Not here," you say. "Come outside with me."

Grey clouds still hang heavy in the sky, threatening to burst again. You find a small wooden bench outside the school, sit down. He slides in next to you and puts a hand on your face. You talk.

"He knows – my father, I mean. He found out...yesterday, and...I can't see you outside of school anymore."

Hanschen stands up with a start, your cheek cold from the sudden lack of his hand there. "I just...I just wanted to walk you home," he starts to protest.

You stand up as well now, face to face with him. "I know, but...if he sees us together, he'll..."

"He doesn't need to know, Ernst. I can...I don't know, walk you to my house; we can do our homework there." He steps closer to you. "Huddle over the Homer?"

Again, you shake your head. "I...I can't."

"And why not?"

"Because I'm scared, Hanschen!" You say it fast, not knowing you're saying it until you do. But it's done, and the words are hanging there and neither of you want to pick them up. You decide to continue anyway. "I...I can't do this if...if we can't be...be..." You make a vague gesture between the two of you.

"Be normal? Is that what you want, Ernst?"

"No! No, I...I'm just scared; I know what happens when people find out about...things like...like us. It's...it's my fault, I'm sorry. I just...can't do it." It's not exactly true, and you both know it; Hanschen has never told you he loves you.

And it doesn't really matter, because he can say it in other ways, but sometimes it feels like you keep leaning and leaning and needing and needing, and he thinks that a kiss will solve it all. And sometimes it does, but times like now?

Well.

You put a hand on his face, look down. "I love you."

He doesn't say anything.

He just nods.

You wish you can say it's enough for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i know i KNOW these chapters have been short so far but i think in the future they'll gradually get longer and longer so...look forward to that i guess???


	3. Everyone Needs a Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "All you really know is that after a while your father decided it was too much, so you pack your things and leave. 
> 
> Just like that. 
> 
> Maybe it just got to be too many funerals."
> 
> Chapter title from "Detail of the Woods," Richard Siken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter moves VERY fast, so prepare yourself, i suppose...
> 
> (and don't worry hanschen will be back soon!!!)

Time passed between the day you told him you couldn't do it and now. If someone were to ask you how long it was – and people do ask how long it was – you wouldn't be able to say. It's too messy, too bony; you don't like keeping track of the sharp things.

One month, two.

Maybe three, maybe four.

Ilse falls sick with something you can't pronounce. A few weeks later she's gone. At the memorial, all the old men wonder why God had to take her from them, when just a month or so earlier she'd been the disgrace of the town. You're very confused at her service.

All you really know is that after a while your father decided it was too much, so you pack your things and leave.

Just like that.

Maybe it just got to be too many funerals.

The last day you're in your hometown you walk from house to house, bidding farewell to too many faces. Melchior hugs you. It seems he hasn't hugged anyone in too long a time, but, really, neither have you. You hang onto each other a bit too long for comfort.

You stop in front of Hanschen's door, the one you've only visited twice before. Even so, you can feel the cool oak on your skin before you knock.

No answer.

You take an old notepad out of your pocket, write a note in pencil and drop it through the mail slot.

_"Hanschen –_

_I'm sorry I won't be able to say goodbye to you in person. As you might know, I'm moving today. I'll miss you. I'm sorry."_

You don't sign it, figure he'll know who it's from regardless.

The vineyard is on the way to the cemetery behind the chapel, but you don't stop there. You figure it would hurt too much, you think as you make your way past it.

The gravestones are all grey.

Even the new ones, which could've been red or black or marble depending on whether or not Moritz's or Wendla's or Ilse's families wanted them to be – you're awash in a sea of dull stone, not sure what to do with yourself.

In the end, you say goodbye to each of them separately, lingering for a bit at Moritz's.

They'd said, when he'd died, it was because of school. That he just barely didn't make it into the next year; he couldn't go on.

You don't know if they knew it was you who beat him out into the next year.

You kneel down at the grey headstone; all of a sudden you wish you'd brought flowers. You bow your head.

"...I'm sorry."

The wind picks up and rustles the leaves on the trees above, and you think that maybe it's a sign that he forgives you.

The gravel path crunches under your feet as you walk back into town, and you debate going back to Hanschen's house, asking if he's there, saying goodbye.

But, really, in the end, it would just hurt too much.

So you trek back to your house, gather up your things, and then...

Well, then you leave.

It seems almost comical, if you think about it for too long: you and your father just up and leaving, not caring where you go as long as it's not here. At least that's how your father sees it; you're not sure.

The new house is bigger, though, and there's two bathrooms now, and a fairly large garden.

You go back to school in a month.

Two days after you move you are sitting in your new room, looking down at the street below to a new view, one you're not quite sure you like yet.

You move to sit at your desk, take out a piece of paper.

_"Hanschen –_

_How are you? I don't know if I'll ever send this letter, and, even if I were to send it, if you would ever read it. I'm writing because – well, in all honesty I'm not quite sure why I'm writing. We've been at the house two days now, and it's bigger than our old one, with two bathrooms and a garden. I think you'd like our garden, Hanschen._

_School starts for us in a little under a month. My father told me that the tests were easier here, so maybe I wouldn't be at the bottom of my class for once._

_Although, he was drunk when he said it. Maybe I should take that advice with a grain of salt._

_I hope the rest of your summer goes well, and that you have an enjoyable (or at least tolerable) school year._

_Tell Melchior ~~and Ilse~~ hello from me._

_I miss you, Hanschen, I really do._

_Write back when school starts, tell me how things are going._

_Sincerely,_   
_Ernst"_

You fold the letter up into messy thirds and shove it into an envelope before you can proofread it, write Hanschen's name and address on the front in a messy scrawl. You hope the postman can read it.

The first day of school arrives, and Hanschen has not written back.

Maybe, you think at first, the mailman hadn't been able to read your handwriting; maybe he never got it in the first place.

But then you remember that don't the postmen send letters back to you when they can't deliver them? He must have gotten it; there was no other way.

By Halloween you still haven't received an answer.

And you're not particularly angry about it; you figure he's just gotten on with life, nothing to be angry about.

But you do miss him, and it's nice to know if someone misses you back.

Christmas comes and goes as it had in past years. You spend most of Christmas Eve holed up in your room because your father decides to get himself a bottle of whiskey as a "present".

That night, you sit down on your bed and write another letter to Hanschen, one you're not sure he'll even open. You're not quite sure if you'll be able to finish it, but in the end there are feelings you need too badly to get out.

So you write.

_"Hanschen –_

_I don't know for sure when this letter will be reaching you, but right now it's Christmas. Well, Christmas Eve, to be exact. And yes, I know I should most likely be celebrating with my family or whatever mundane proclamations get thrown at me every holiday season. I know I should. There's plenty of reasons why I'm not. It's probably best not to wonder about those on your part._

_Yesterday, I went to the library. It snows more here than it did back where you are, so my walk probably took longer than it might've taken had I walked the same distance in our hometown. All that aside, I went to the library for the first time in a long time. And I found myself looking at books about birds. I find myself quite fascinated by them, and I'm not sure why. Do you like birds, Hanschen? I have a feeling you do._

_Sometimes...well, sometimes I catch myself thinking about what might happen if you were here, with me. I suppose I would have to get you a Christmas present, wouldn't I? I've taken up drawing these past few months; maybe I'd draw you a picture. A picture of a bird, how about that._

_Maybe I'll draw you a picture of a bird and mail it to you as a Christmas present. I'm very fond of birds._

_Anyway, that's enough about that. All I was really writing to say was: merry Christmas. I miss you._

_– Ernst"_

You don't read it over, just as you'd done with the last one; you shove it in an envelope, slap a stamp on, and that's that.

Two weeks pass, three, four. No reply.

You still tell yourself you're not mad.

And maybe you aren't; maybe you're really, truly feeling perfectly all right with the entire thing, and there are a plethora of reasons as to why he might not respond in the first place...

Yes, you think; it's not really his fault at all.

And you get on with your Christmas.

And then, all of a sudden, the school year is almost over, and amidst the few friends you have made and the few classes you have above a C in (your father was right, it turns out; you have two B's this year, more than you've ever had) you write three more letters. None of them get answered, none of them sent back.

The summer starts, and you write him less and less, busy yourself in the world around you, Take Advantages of Opportunities, as your father so pointedly puts it. (He never explicitly states what opportunities he's speaking of, so often you have to seek them out instead of letting them come to you.) And then...

Well, and then the next school year starts, next Christmas arrives, next summer.

And then you stop writing.

It's not worth it, takes too much time, hurts too much, costs too much – your reasons never seem to end.

You don't...forget him, of course. He's always there, the faintest reminder in the back of your mind, the whisper of a name that never quite seems to go away. But over time, slowly but surely, you find yourself thinking about him less and less.

But then there are the days.

They start when you're seventeen, a year or so in the new town which doesn't seem quite as new anymore; you're in the library when it happens.

You always gravitate toward the gothic fiction section: the weird, creepy, mind-bending tales that populate the small corner at the back. It's mostly because no one is ever there, but you do find the stories interesting.

And you're there one day and you see a book.

It doesn't matter what the book is called, and truthfully, you can't remember it in the first place. It's your typical tale of suspense, psychological twists, slight horror...

And the birds.

It's only one paragraph, not even that long, but the birds come to life on the page and you think of Hanschen.

You don't mean to – you never mean to – but you do, and all of a sudden you want him there more than anything, think back to the days when he would kiss you and touch you and you felt like _something_ , and now you're crying in the middle of a library.

And that's when it starts.

Every so often you'll see something, hear something, read something, and it's _him_. And you miss him more than you can bear and you have to go home or excuse yourself to the restroom because it's all Too Much, and why didn't he return your letters, and you should've known.

The days when you see him start becoming more and more frequent, and you're reminded in more diverse places each week, it seems: a bookstore here, an old house there, sometimes just the walk to school is enough to set it off.

And that's all you think of it, really: a switch that turns on or off depending on the day, the location, how little you slept last night.

You don't tell anybody about the incidents, figure no one would listen, or wouldn't understand even if they did.

And so, the last few years you stay with your father are filled with heavy breathing and tightened chests and memories flashing by so fast you can't even reach them, and all the while your father yelling for you to pull yourself together, calm down, et cetera, et cetera.

Your eighteenth birthday passes with little more than a nod from your father. He gets you a collection of short stories by Edgar Allen Poe. "So you can maybe stop hanging around that forgotten back section of the library while not even checking out a book once," he says messily as you unwrap the book, its red cover smooth in your hands.

And it's a wonderful present, really, even though your father most likely obtained it at a yard sale or some other secondhand establishment. You devour the volume with an intensity and speed you've never quite had with books before, and you can never tell which story is your favorite, though you are incredibly partial to "The Gold-Bug". Three months after your birthday and you can recite "The Raven" from memory, though you never do because for some reason it reminds you too much of Hanschen, and an episode in the middle of your favorite poem isn't usually recommended.

Your nineteenth year flies by with impressive speed, and all of a sudden you find yourself ready to move out, your father's "habits", as you put them, too much for you.

So you leave.

The first year you're in Munich, in a tiny apartment barely holding a job as an editor for a local newspaper, trying to communicate in passed notes and crude hand signs, your attempts at teaching your coworkers your language met with laughs and confused glares. You rely heavily on donations from your father, who has a nasty habit of forgetting to spot you your rent every month or so.

You spend a lot of money on stamps and books that first year.

And then one day you decide that now this is too much as well, that there must be an easier place for you to go.

You're in a library when it comes to you:

_"To Berlin, or to Munich..._

_Would you like to see New York, Ernst?"_

You secure a boat ticket the next day, and a month later you leave, send one final German-sent letter to your father:

_"Papa –_

_I've decided Munich is too much for me at the moment, and just yesterday decided where I am to move to._

_I'll be taking a ship to Manhattan in one month. Hopefully I can find an apartment to rent and a nice steady job so you won't have to mail me my rent across the Atlantic._

_I will mail you my address as soon as I have one._

_– E"_

You write a letter to Hanschen as well, don't send it, don't even write it down. All it says is that you're moving, and you miss him.

You pray in every religion that he can hear it.


End file.
